100 DAYS

"Set in the breathtaking natural beauty of the Rwanda countryside, this fist ever fiction film made about the Rwanda civil war tells a powerful story of genocide and human survival with compassion and integrity. The film centers on a pair of young lovers; Bapiste is more than ready to have sex with his girlfriend Josette, but she refuses, arguing that when they are married they can have all the sex they would like.

Meanwhile, powerful Hutu leaders have had enough of Tutsi rebels and call on all Hutus to kill their Tutsi neighbors. As chaos breaks out, the Tutsis flee and the lovers are separated. Josesette and her family find solace in a Catholic church run by a Hutu priest. The Catholic Church, the state, and the French army look the other way as bloodshed ensues.

When the Belgian army sent in to protect the church is called away on an emergency, the Hutus attack and massacre hundreds of women and children. Josette is saved by the priest who obliges her to become his concubine and repeatedly rapes her. She miraculously survives, but she is only a husk of the woman that she was. As the Tutsis regroup, they exact terrible revenge. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

“It’s the images in 100 Days that graze the soul… There’s nothing anonymous about this nightmare” ~ Wesley Morris, Boston Globe

“Docudrama filmmaking at its finest” ~ Dennis Harvey, Variety

“100 Days succeeds as drama, and succeeds in telling the truth” ~ Mark Doyle, BBC

Rwanda/U.K,2001,96 mins,drama in English, Nick Hughes, dir. This film premiered at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival and at more than 40 international film festivals.

100% ARABICA

BONUS

ROTATING SQUARE 

 MADE IN LAGOS

2 Weeks in Lagos is a turbulent and thrilling journey into the lives of Ejikeme and Lola. Their lives collide when Ejikeme an investment banker comes home from the United States with Lola’s brother Charlie to invest in Nigerian businesses.  2 Weeks in Lagos captures the excitement, vibrancy, and complexity of everyday life in Lagos, a dynamic city where anything is possible in 2 Weeks.

“Nigerian filmmaker Kathryn Fasegha’s sophomore feature is one of those great surprises that remind us why we love movies. Through the simple premise of two families coming to terms to decide their future and legacy, focusing on the romantic bridge between the youngsters, the director conceives a heart-warming, enchanted, funny and perceptive look at family values, faith, integrity, pure love and capital interests.” ~ Brazilian Press

“2 Weeks in Lagos paints a dynamic and vigorous canvas of the city and its vibrancy. Efficiently performed by a stellar cast, well written with accurate humor and unexpected twists, it’s an accomplished, sensitive and timely romantic comedy.” ~ Brazilian Press

A Son - Trailer - ArtMattan Films.mp4 from ArtMattan Productions on Vimeo.

A SON / Bik Eneich: Un fils 

DIRECTED BY MEHDI BARSAOUI 
TUNISIA/ 2019/ DRAMA/ ARABIC WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES/ 96 MIN

SYNOPSIS

An intense family drama starring French-Tunisian actor Sami Bouajila, winner of the Orizzonti Award for Best Actor, Venice Film Festival 2019.  11 year old Aziz needs a liver transplant after being seriously injured during a terrorist ambush while on holiday in 2011. At the hospital, a family secret will be revealed.

A drama that expertly captures complex human emotions within their socio-cultural, historical and political context. ~ Hollywood Reporter

Not many debuting directors are able to bring subtlety and depth to a heart-rending subject, which is just one reason why Mehdi M. Barsaoui's superb "A Son" deserves significant attention. ~ Variety

It's a film reminiscent of the work of Iranian master Asghar Farhadi [A Separation, The Salesman], full of twists and turns as it puts its characters in increasingly tragic situations. ~ Cineuropa

AWARDS

César Awards, France (2021)
Best Actor: Sami Bouajila

Victoria Film Festival, Canada (2020) 
Best Feature: Mehdi Barsaoui

Malmö Arab Film Festival (2020)
Best Actress: Najla Ben Abdallah

Kosmorama, Trondheim Internasjonale Film Festival (2020)
New Director's Award: Mehdi Barsaoui

Venice Film Festival (2019)
Best Actor: Sami Bouajila

Cairo International Film Festival (2019)
Arab Cinema's Horizons Award: Mehdi Barsaoui
Salah Abu Seif Prize: Mehdi Barsaoui
UNFPA Award: Mehdi Barsaoui

Hainan International Film Festival (2019)
Young Talent Award Winner: Best Feature Film 

A Taste of Our Land - Trailer - Art from ArtMattan Productions on Vimeo.

A TASTE OF OUR LAND

Set in an unnamed African country, A Taste of Our Land is a film about greed told against the backdrop of the current Chinese influence in African countries. While trying to provide for his pregnant wife, Yohani, an older African man, retrieves a gold nugget in a Chinese-run mine built on his land and runs away to sell it for $100. When he learns its real value, he becomes as obsessed with it as Cheng, the Chinese mine supervisor who will stop at nothing to get it back.

Winner, Best First Feature Film, 2020 Africa Movie Academy Awards; Winner, Best First Feature Narrative, 2020 Pan African Film Festival.

ABDIAS DO NASCIMENTO 

Abolicao.mp4 from ArtMattan Productions on Vimeo.

ABOLICAO

ACES

OTOMO

A powerful film portraying institutionalized racism and police brutality, Otomo provides a convincing look at the everyday world of refugees, who are continuously surrounded by tension and insecurity.

In the summer of 1989, a Stuttgart newspaper reported the true story of a West African asylum seeker who physically assaulted an intolerant subway ticket-taker; fled, and became the target of a city-wide manhunt. Otomo is a sober, fictionalized reconstruction of a tale that shocked Stuttgart, and a gripping portrait of how institutionalized racism drives a disempowered individual to violence and inhumanity.

West African immigrant Frederic Otomo (Isaach de Bankole) lacks the proper papers to be hired for the most menial of jobs; he has survived for eight years with the help of a Catholic charity. Otomo is the target of verbal abuse, is thrown out of his boarding house, and even scorned by neighborhood dogs. He feels and looks out of place. A stoic bubbling pot of wrath on the run, de Bankole's performance establishes Otomo's essence without words-language cannot express the gravity of his situation. As a ticking soundtrack counts down his fated minutes, Otomo is helped by a kind, aging hippie and her granddaughter, establishing the potential for an inclusive German society….if it is not too late...

|Germany|1999|84 mins|drama|German with English subtitles|Frieder Schlaich, dir.|

"I was impressed by the decision to make Otomo a bit of an anti-hero, seeming aware that in desperate times, good people may say or do things outside the norm." -- Greg Dean Schmitz, Greg's previews at Yahoo!Movies

"Documents the institutionalized racism and xenophobia that painted one man into a corner, while never excusing the terrible means by which he took his final escape." -- Jessica Winter, Village Voice

"Much of the sense of size in this account of an immigrant worker, who is only one among many thousands in Germany, comes from the performance by Isaach de Bankole." -- Stanley Kauffmann, New Republic

WAALO FENDO: WHERE THE EARTH FREEZES
Senegal / Switzerland, 1998, 65 mins, drama in Wolof and Italian with English subtitles, Mohammed Soudani, dir.

Milan, like Paris or Stuttgart, and like many other European cities, is the theater of the drama of immigration. Demba reconstructs his story and that of his brother Yaro, both Senegalese immigrants in Italy, in a long and fragmentary flashback that begins with Yaro’s murder and recounts their departure from the village, arrival in Europe, the work they find selling lighters and picking tomatoes in the south of Italy: the stages every “non-EEC citizen” goes through in Italy. It is a story of immigration like so many others but that most people are unaware of. Waalo Fendo illustrates the dehumanization faced by so many immigrants all over the world.

AFRICAN MOTHERS

Two films that explore the commitment of motherhood by looking at the life of two African women, in "Seasons of Life," a housemaid, who is sexually abused is forced to give up her child but comes back for him years later, in "Joy" A Nigerian mother living in the USA struggles to convince her traditionalist husband not to circumcise their ten-year-old daughter.

SEASONS OF A LIFE

A housemaid, who is sexually abused by her boss and made pregnant, is forced to give up her son in order to go on with her education. Six years later she comes back to claim her son. From Malawi comes this moving story about sexual abuse, women rights and the legal justice system in Malawi. This film tackles universal themes in an African setting giving an understanding of some of the modernization and democratization processes in Africa.

Directed by C. Shemu Joyah, Malawi, 2008, 102 min, Fiction in English.

JOY

A Nigerian mother living in the USA struggles to convince her traditionalist husband not to circumcise their ten-year-old daughter. This short film explores the clash of cultures in a modern society.

Directed by Solomon Onita Jr., USA, 2017, 15 min, Short Fiction in English.

Two African Griots connect Africa and the World: Youssou N’Dour in Return to Gorée by Pierre-Yves Borgeaud, Sotigui Kouyaté in Names Live Nowhere by Dominique Loreau. DVD also includes Youssou N’Dour’s live concert performance on Gorée Island. 

RETURN TO GOREE Film and Concert

RETURN TO GOREE follows Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour's historical journey tracing the trail left by enslaved Africans and the jazz music they invented. Youssou N'Dour's challenge is to bring back to Africa a jazz repertoire of his own songs to perform a concert in Goree, the island that today symbolizes the slave trade and stands to honor its victims. With Youssou N'Dour, Moncef Genoud, Joseph Ndiaye, Idris Muhammad, and Amiri Baraka among others.

DVD includes filmed final concert on the Goree Island.

RETURN TO GOREE / CONCERT, Pierre Yves Borgeaud, Senegal/Switzerland/
Luxembourg, 2006, 108 min. / 52min. In English and French with English subtitles.

NAMES LIVE NOWHERE 

NAMES LIVE NOWHERE (Les Noms N'Habitent Nulle Part) - whose title is a Senegalese proverb - a griot (story teller) traveling from Dakar to Brussels weaves a tale about African expatriates and offers a candid look at the life of African immigrants in Belgium. With Sotigui Kouyate - a real life griot - as the story teller.

NAMES LIVE NOWHERE, Dominique Loreau, Belgium, 1994 , 76min. In French with English subtitles.

Double DVD with Two African Stories: TAZZEKA (Morocco) & BILATENA: THE GOLDEN CHILD (Ethiopia)

TAZZEKA 

Growing up in the Moroccan village of Tazzeka, Elias learned the secrets of traditional Moroccan cuisine from his grandmother who raised him. Years later, meeting a top Paris chef and a young woman named Salma inspires him to leave home.

Directed By Jean-Philippe Gaud / France and Morocco / 2018 / French, Arabic w/ English Subtitles / 95 min

BILATENA, THE GOLDEN CHILD

Abi, a dynamic and resourceful twelve year old boy, lives with his mother Degua and his 26 year old university graduate unemployed brother Zelalem (Zele). Abi, who is a a hyper-industrious hard working 12-year-old boy with two jobs, supports his poor mother and his older unemployed brother through their day to day lives.

But when their mother dies of Hepatitis B and Abi is also infected with the virus, Zele must face the big challenge of supporting his own life and keeping his younger brother alive by earning the 20,000 Ethiopian birr per month needed for his brother's medication.

Directed by Kinfe Banbu, 2014 | Ethiopia | Drama | 105 min | Amharic w/ English subtitles

Two fiction films that explore the life of women in Africa. Set in Burkina Fasso AN UNCOMMON WOMAN is a comedy about a cuckold woman who decides to take a second husband. CAPE VERDE MY LOVE is drama that takes a critical look at the lives of women in contemporary Cape Verde.

AN UNCOMMON WOMAN

Mina is tired of her husband's infidelity and decides to take a drastic decision: She takes a second husband. Based on his conversations with women involved in polygamist relationships, he illustrates - to very funny effects - the daily life of two persons - in this case two men - who share a spouse. On a comedic tone, Abdoulaye Dao tells us a story of jealousy, infidelity, romance and revenge. Directed by Dao Abdoulaye, 2009, 101 min, Burkina Faso, Comedy, French with English subtitles.

An Uncommon Woman-Une Femme Pas Comme Les Autres- was a success in its native Burkina Faso and is cast with some the best actors of Burkinabe cinema.

Official selection, African Diaspora International Film Festival 2010.

CAPE VERDE MY LOVE

Praia, Cape Verde. Laura, Flavia and Bela are childhood friends. Each leads her own life and they sometimes meet to dance, dine and have fun. But one day the calm rivers of their lives break their banks and become wild torrents: Ricardo, Flavia's husband, rapes his pupil Indira, Laura's 13-year old eldest daughter. A film that takes a critical look at the lives of women in Cape Verde .

By Ana Lucia Ramos Lisboa, 2007, Cape Verde, Drama, 77min, Cape Verdean Portuguese w/ English subtitles.

The African Women Behind The Camera double DVD highlights the work of two very different contemporary African women filmmakers:

2 Weeks in Lagos by Nigerian director Kathryn Fasegha is a socially conscious Christian based romantic comedy drama set in upper class Lagos, Nigeria.

Childhood Destroyed by Chadian director and journalist ZARA M. YACOUB is a short fiction film that denounces the living conditions of young girls in Chad in a delicate yet powerful way.

2 WEEKS IN LAGOS

 2 Weeks in Lagos is a turbulent and thrilling journey into the lives of Ejikeme and Lola. Their lives collide when investment banker Ejikeme comes home to Nigeria from the US with Lola’s brother Charlie and falls in love with her. He must then defy his parents’ plan to marry him to the daughter of a wealthy politician.

2 Weeks in Lagos captures the excitement, vibrancy, and complexity of everyday life in Lagos, a dynamic city where anything is possible in 2 Weeks.

Directed by Kathryn Fasegha | CANADA, NIGERIA | COMEDY, ROMANCE | ENGLISH | 2019 | 115 MINS

CHILDHOOD DESTROYED

Eleven year old Mariam works as a domestic to provide for her guardian, her unemployed Uncle Djimet, and his family. Mariam wakes up early each day to go to work as an all-purpose maid, housekeeper, cook and baby sitter for the Nadji family. With her many tasks, she is constantly under pressure from Nadji and his son Moussa, and must answer to the whims of his wife, and young children. One day, Mariam is arrested for having unwittingly thrown rubbish in a prohibited place. She is detained for five days in prison without her uncle or employer even inquiring of her whereabouts.
Zara M. Yacoub / Chad / 1999 / 26 Min / Arabic Dialect w/ English Subtitles

Revealing films about two very important Afro-Brazilian figures:

* Abdias do Nascimento (March 14, 1914 - May 23, 2011) was an outspoken and vibrant defender of Afro-Brazilian civil rights.
* Natalino Jose do Nacimento, better known as Natal Da Portela (July 31, 1905- April 5, 1975) was one of the founders and major sponsor of the Portela Samba School in Rio de Janeiro, champion of the 2017 Carnival parade.

ABDIAS DO NASCIMENTO

Loving and revealing documentary about Afro-Brazilian scholar/writer/activist /politician Abdias do Nascimento (1914-2011), a significant figure in and leader of Brazil’s Black movement who founded the Black Experimental Theater in 1944 and was very active in the international Pan-African Movement.
Directed by Aida Marques, 2011, 95 min, Brazil, Documentary, Portuguese with English subtitles.

NATAL DA PORTELA

The name ‘Natal da Portela’ is historically attached to the cultural identity of Brazil. Natal da Portela created the first escola de samba in Rio de Janeiro. The schools of samba are the soul of carnival in Brazil and major reservoirs of Afro-Brazilian culture. The film depicts the life of Natal da Portela as a young man from the favelas--the slums of the northern part of Rio de Janeiro--up to the creation of “la Portela”, the school of samba he created.

Directed by Paulo Cezar Saraceni, 1988, 100min, Brazil, Drama, Portuguese with English subtitles.

Two exciting, colorful films spotlight the African roots of Cuba's culture by focusing on two legendary artists -- Rumbero Papa Montero and Filmmaker Sara Gomez -- in this unique box set.

THE LAST RUMBA OF PAPA MONTERO / LA ULTIMA RUMBA DE PAPA MONTERO

Get ready to rumba! The life of Cuba s last great rumbero is detailed in THE LAST RUMBA OF PAPA MONTERO, a bold story that captures Cuban traditions and culture through beautiful imagery, sensual music, and the most scorching Latin dance ever invented. Afro-Cuban mythology serves as the force behind the narrative as mythic figures guide the characters through the events of the story.

| Cuba/Martinique | 1992 | 52 mins | docu-drama in Spanish with English subtitles | Octavio Cortazar, Dir. |

“Montero is a celebration of rumba as heart and soul for a colorful Cuban landscape." - SLANT

SARA GOMEZ: AN AFRO-CUBAN FILMMAKER

Acclaimed filmmaker Sara Gomez comes to life in the rich, multilayered documentary SARA GOMEZ: AN AFRO-CUBAN FILMMAKER. Though trained in ethnography, Gomez became the first female Cuban filmmaker. Her background shaped her films, which reflect her interests in Afro-Cuban cultural traditions and women s issues. Friends and family members recall her talent, intelligence, and generosity. Ultimately SARA GOMEZ is a love story between Sara and her husband (filmmaker Germinal Hernandez), Sara and her family, and Sara and her culture.

| Cuba/Switzerland | 2005 | 76 min | documentary in Spanish with English subtitles | Alessandra Muller, Dir. |

"[SARA GOMEZ] is an extremely important documentary.... " - Kwame Dixon, SCOPE

ALEIJADINHO, PASSION, GLORY AND TORMENT 

ALMACITA, SOUL OF DESOLATO 

ALMODOU

ALUKU LIBA: MAROON AGAIN

AN UNCOMMON WOMAN

ANGELICA

Angelica, after a long absence from Puerto Rico, returns home when her father, Wilfredo, suffers a stroke. This unexpected return and her father's illness force Angelica to re-evaluate her relationship with her mother and family members who don't accept her because of her skin color. She must face herself and discovers that she does not know who she is. After her father's death, Angelica must decide whether to return to the comfort of her previous life, dissatisfied, but secure, or set on an adventurous path to rediscover herself as an independent, modern, strong, black, and Puerto Rican woman.

Directed by Marisol Gómez-Mouakad, Puerto Rico, 2016, 100min, Drama, English & Spanish w/English subtitles

"Purposely challenging the Eurocentric beauty standards that blatantly plague Latin America on and off screen, Puerto Rican director Marisol Gómez-Mouakad sets out to tell the story of an empowered Afro-Latina fighting colorism at home in her debut feature Angélica." ~ Remezcla

“People talk about racism and sexism in the U.S.,” Gómez-Mouakad explains. “They may not do much, but in talking about it they are at least addressing the problem. In Puerto Rico — and across the Caribbean and Latin America — there is a lot of denial. If you do talk about the issues, you are accused of being over sensitive. But words have power and words can hurt.” ~ director Marisol Gómez-Mouakad

"In addition to the theme of racism, the film touches upon the implications of machismo in a patriarchal society from the perspective of women." ~ Repeating Islands 

"Another glorious, glorious portrait on race and the roles women play—by pressure, by tradition, by choice. " ~ Guilie Castillo Oriard

Angels On Diamond Street Trailer - Art HD from ArtMattan Productions on Vimeo.

ANGELS ON DIAMOND STREET